For years, the Kent County Food Policy Council (KCFPC) has centered community voice in its work of bringing together diverse perspectives to shape a more equitable and accessible local food system. Like many organizations committed to community engagement, KCFPC faced a critical question: What does it mean to truly value lived experience?
Too often, community members are asked to share their time, stories, and expertise without compensation or meaningful decision-making power. While their input informs strategies and plans, it doesn’t always translate into ownership.
To address this gap, KCFPC turned to the LivedPay Compensation Model, a KConnect initiative and framework designed to help organizations move from intention to action by compensating lived experience and strengthening community partnership in decision-making.
Building a Community-Led Foundation
The Kent County Food Policy Council, a committee of the Kent County Essential Needs Task Force, was established in 2021 with a vision to create a more equitable, sustainable, and community-driven food system in Kent County.
From the start, KCFPC prioritized:
- Representation across the food ecosystem from growers and distributors to advocates and policymakers
- Inclusion of community members whose lived experiences reflect the realities of food access, affordability, and nutrition
- A collaborative approach to identifying challenges and shaping solutions
This foundation ensured that community voice was not an afterthought but central to the work. Still, KCFPC leadership recognized an opportunity to go further.
“Because of my own lived experience, I’ve seen firsthand how our systems extract stories and insights from our neighbors and communities, often without respecting the time it takes,” said Eleanor Moreno, Food Systems Innovation Director at Kent County Food Policy Council. “Within my role, I’m positioned to challenge our systems and uplift community members in a way I wasn’t. It’s my responsibility to my community.”
A Turning Point: Recognizing the Need for Change
Through extensive community engagement (including one-on-one interviews, focus groups, and resident participation), KCFPC gathered critical insights to inform its strategy and a food system plan, including 75 policy recommendations, to engage municipalities and organizations within Kent County.
The development of KCFPC’s plan marked a pivotal realization. While community voices were deeply embedded in the process and development, ownership and decision-making power were less clearly defined.
This prompted a shift in thinking:
- How can community expertise be more meaningfully recognized?
- What would it look like to move beyond engagement toward shared leadership?
- How can KCFPC ensure accountability to the people most impacted by its work?
These questions led KCFPC to explore new approaches, including LivedPay.
Introducing LivedPay
LivedPay is a framework designed to help organizations build more equitable and effective community partnerships by recognizing lived experience as expertise.
At its core, the framework supports and guides organizations to compensate lived experience in a meaningful and consistent way, strengthen partnerships between institutions and community members, and increase participation in decision-making processes and spaces.
Rather than relying on incentives or volunteer participation, LivedPay offers a structured approach. Compensation rates are guided by a data-informed formula based on income levels and cost-of-living trends, ensuring that payment reflects both the value of contributions and the local economy.
“Much like other communities, West Michigan is not short on community wisdom and lived experience expertise. What we have lacked is infrastructure in equitably honoring this form of knowledge. LivedPay provides a systems approach to addressing this,” said Dr. Shayla Young, Vice President of Policy, Advocacy, & Community Engagement at KConnect. “This framework is grounded in real cost-of-living data, a clear and applicable compensation structure, and community expertise from both youth and adults. At KConnect, we are committed to both lifting the need and following the model internally.”
Implementation: Shifting Culture and Practice
Before introducing LivedPay to the broader community, KCFPC started internally. Council members engaged in discussions to explore how the framework aligned with their values, the requirements for implementing it sustainably, and how it could reshape relationships with community partners.
“The internal alignment was critical,” said Eleanor. “Implementing LivedPay was more than a formal change. It marked a shift in mindset from viewing community members as participants to recognizing them as partners and leaders.”
Early Impact: Centering Community Expertise
While implementation is ongoing, early impacts are already visible. Community members are increasingly:
- Recognized and compensated as contributors with valuable expertise
- Engaged in deeper, more sustained ways
- Invited to help shape priorities, strategies, and solutions
KCFPC is also seeing stronger relationships built on trust, transparency, and accountability. “We’re simply neighbors at the end of the day, and neighbors have a lot to say if we’re willing to listen and engage with them in a different way than is typically done,” said Eleanor.
KCFPC’s experience offers important insights for others looking to strengthen community partnerships:
- Treat lived experience as expertise. Community knowledge is not secondary. It is essential.
- Ensure compensation reflects value. If people are contributing their time and insight, compensation should reflect that contribution.
- Start with internal alignment. Organizational readiness is key to successful implementation.
- Prioritize trust and relationships. Equity-driven engagement is built over time through consistency and accountability.
“The LivedPay framework not only opened a platform for dialogue within the Council, but it also provided the language to explore how we could express the value of community experience through the right relationships,” said Wende Randall, Executive Director of the Kent County Essential Needs Task Force. “We have had group and individual discussions of how we can stage implementation over time to allow for organic growth of relationships. We initiated a fellowship model to provide learning and networking opportunities, and support for neighbors to build out their experience focusing on their interests, while KCFPC established the processes and budget to continue this fundamental work. Our lessons are shared with the LivedPay team for collective learning and to provide examples for other organizations.”
Looking Ahead
The Kent County Food Policy Council continues to integrate LivedPay into its work, refining its approach and deepening its commitment to community leadership. The long-term vision is clear: a future where community members not only shape the work but also lead, own, and sustain it.
Interested in bringing this approach to your organization? Visit the LivedPay website to explore the available tools and resources.
